J.M. Machado de Assis was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1839. His mother was a Portuguese servant in a Brazilian household and his father a slave. He was raised as the free son of a slave family and with little formal education he became trilingual and the first President of the Brazilian Academy of letters.
"Epitaph of a Small Winner" or "Posthumas Reminiscences of Bras Cubas" is the best known of this ten or so novels - a truly unique masterpiece of about 200 pages. It was first published in 1880, about eight years before slavery was abolished in his country. French culture and literature were strong influences on the Brazil of the period and on Machado himself. Serndahl was a particular influence.
The novel was last published by the Oxford University Press in 1997, and copies are still available through Amazon and other sources.
Diary of Ann Frank
The Things They Carried - Tom O'Conner
The Sweet Hereafter- Rusell Banks
War and Peace (Tolstoy) changed my life.
Independent People (Haldor Laxness).
The Stranger (Camus).
Siddartha (Herman Hesse).
Pedro Paramo (Juan Rulfo).
How? And welcome, Durriken!
Georgeob - sorry missed you - must have a look at those books!
Thank you. Tolstoi made me that much morally self aware, I guess, and he also gave me a new understanding for the forces that govern history.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey is so rich, but even if it had nothing in it except for the following lines, it would be worthwhile:
"Has joy any survival value in the operations of
evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the
morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction.
Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and
without courage all other virtues are useless. "
Hmm...
Most of the Taoist lexicon, with particular nods to Lao Tze and Chuang Tze, who had a wickedly subtle sense of humour.
Some Shakespeare, most notably King Lear.
A lot of fringe literature, including Benjamin Wiessman's short story anthology "Dear Dead Person", a Joe Lansdale collection called "Electric Gumbo", Iain Banks' "The Wasp Factory", "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn, anything by Barbara Gowdy. This sort of writing made me see the underbelly of the world in an entirely more sympathetic light.
From my beatnik phase, sadly only one book stays in my memories. "On the Road", Jack Kerouac.
I also read a ton of literature on esoteric religion, and the mystic traditions of "popular" religion. That really gave me an insight into the whole religion thing, let me tell you.
One of my favourite short novels, while it did not change my life, was the culinary thriller "The Debt to Pleasure" by John Lanchester. Mrs. cav read it on my bequest, and hated it. It's not her style, but I was completely sucked in by the labyrinthine prose and of course, the food aspect. The prose is really decadent enough to be called gourmet fare.
Oh, and Pinter, for showing me how flowers could have incredibly dirty-sounding names....clematis, convolvulus, snapdragon...
I always got a kick out of that. (I think it was "The Dumb Waiter")
<running in, breaking my legs>: welcome, welcome, iriskermit!!!!! congrats on the first post!!!!
Wow! The thread lives!!! And not only great opinions, but old home day!
Interestingly, though I love your post (and welcome indeed) Iriskermit - there is a strong counter-argument that anxiety and pessimism is more selected for, dammit!
Orchid....to cover or not to cover, that is the palm heart of the question...
durriken wrote:War and Peace (Tolstoy) changed my life.
Independent People (Haldor Laxness).
The Stranger (Camus).
Siddartha (Herman Hesse).
Pedro Paramo (Juan Rulfo).
Yeah! "War and Peace." A great read, and easy too. Don't let the length deter you. If you can afford $100-$150, run out and buy the Masterpiece Theatre tape set of War and Peace. You'll never be the same. I had my Tolstoy and Russian period. I read so much Tolstoy that I almost became a Christian one day, but I got over it in an hour or so.
I also had a Hermann Hesse period and read most of his stuff when I was young and depressed all the time. I liked "Siddartha" because I was more or less a Buddhist.
In Hesse's "Steppenwolf," the protagonist has a dream where he's on a cliff sniping at autos coming along a mountain road. They roll over the cliff and crash. I was talking to someone on abuzz who lived in Columbus, and I mentioned how the Columbus sniper and "Steppenwolf's" sniper were similar. A couple of days later the guy on abuzz said he contacted the Sherif's office and told him how the Columbus sniper was probably inspired by the Hesse book. Well, the sniper was caught, but I haven't heard from the abuzzer in Columbus in quite a while.
How were you never the same after War and Peace, Coluber?
I read Hesse's Steppenwolf and was miffed to find there were no references to "Magic Carpet Ride" or "Born to be Wild." What a disappointment.
I forgot to mention a couple of books before: "In Praise of Older Women" by Stephen Vincenzy, and "Cities of the Interior" by Anais Nin. They taught me the ways of the wimmins, from two very different perspectives.
Oh? More, cav!
I am soooooo over Nin!
Does your site say why YOU love him, Jer? I have read some, and I like him - but what is it about his stuff that you love?
